


Wrong Choices

by makethestorylast



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, basically hidgens fakes infection saves paul and emma and starts on a cure, but emma is still having a Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25253620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makethestorylast/pseuds/makethestorylast
Summary: Henry Hidgens made a lot of decisions during the apotheosis.Emma can't help but think he made the wrong ones.
Relationships: Henry Hidgens & Emma Perkins
Kudos: 11





	Wrong Choices

**Author's Note:**

> CW // Mention of thought spirals, anxiety. Character death mentioned. Lab injuries mentioned.

Emma couldn’t say why she was there, sitting on a stool, watching Professor Hidgens run between counters and tables, cross-referencing notes and diagrams with a live sample of the virus. Paul had long since fallen asleep, and when she finally glanced at the clock—3 am, really?—and resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t sleeping, her first thought, after detangling herself from Paul’s arms, was to sit in the lab.

Maybe she just needed to be in her element. Other than brewing shitty coffee, the only thing she was marginally good at was science, at least based on her first semester bio grade. So there she sat, sipping a mug of lukewarm coffee that she hadn’t bothered to top off and letting her eyes dart back and forth, following the professor in his manic haze.

He mumbled to himself as he worked, and Emma caught disjointed phrases—a whisper of “cancerous,” a murmur of “immunity,” nothing that made sense to her sleep-deprived brain. She’d given up following his train of thought. But every time he picked up a new instrument—a lighter, a scalpel, a syringe full of spores—she winced, convinced that any second he’d turn around, poised to attack, a blade cutting through an artery, a burn across her face, spores racing through her bloodstream… 

Professor Hidgens suddenly whipped around, and had Emma not been too busy shielding her face, she’d have seen him seconds from a breakthrough, ready to run another theory by her. Instead, as she lowered shaking hands, she saw guilt and pity, his hands clenching and unclenching like he was trying to contain the urge to comfort her.

“I’m sorry for startling you, Emma.”

She didn’t expect him to apologize. Although in all fairness, what she expected was to be sedated again, tied up, forced through another round of… 

_No. I’m not spiraling here. Not in front of him._

“S’okay, Professor. Just tired.” 

_Tired, anxious, terrified that you’ll turn on us again…_

“I hope you aren’t here for my sake, Emma. I’ll get along just fine alone. Go back to bed.”

“I’m alright, Professor.”

“You don’t seem alright, dear. Have you been sleeping okay?”

“Not really.”

_It’s hard when every time you feel yourself falling, all you can think of is being sedated._

“Emma, you need to sleep. I care about you, I don’t want you hurting yourself like this.”

It’s important to remember that at that moment, Emma was sleep deprived beyond belief. In fact, her last full night of sleep had to be over a month ago, before the helicopter, before the PEIP agents, before…

“You didn’t seem so concerned when you were the one hurting me.”

The second the words tumbled out of her mouth, she regretted them. If she was rested, if she were in a better mental state, if she’d just _held it all in_ , but it was too late.

She tried not to relish in the way Hidgens’ face fell, pain in his eyes as he turned away.

“That’s not a very fair thing to say, Emma. You know if there were any other way…”

“And it was _so vital_ that you pretend to be one of them? Vital that you gain their trust by _sedating me?_ By tying me up and leaving me to _die?”_

“The only way to slow the spread of the infection was to destroy the meteor. Did you really delude yourself into thinking they’d ever let us get close?” He slammed a hand on the counter next to her. She jumped again, but he didn’t notice. “Me pretending to be infected is the reason Paul survived!”

“You pretending to be infected is the reason Ted _died!”_

They paused, Emma standing from her spot, ready to fight at the drop of a hat, Hidgens biting back his anger, a muscle in his jaw twitching with the effort. She didn’t even _like_ the bastard, but no one deserved to die. No one. 

And a part of her brain was crying, screaming, reminding her over and over that it wasn’t his fault, it _couldn’t_ be his fault. Ted escaped with her. Ted was a coward. Ted ran at the first sign of trouble and got himself shot.

_But if Greg hadn’t followed us out of the fortress…_

“Emma,” he began, steadying his voice. “You know I had no choice—”

“Bullshit,” she said, her voice low and quivering with rage. She mentally cursed when her voice cracked on the word, betraying that she was seconds away from crying. “You had a choice. You made the wrong one.”

And before any tears fell, she stormed out of the lab, slamming the door behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to drop a comment/kudos if you enjoyed! <3
> 
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